Bulleit Bourbon “Frontier Whiskey”
Bulleit Bourbon
Bulleit Bourbon, the self-proclaimed “Frontier Whiskey”, will be the subject of our next review. As a brand, Bulleit is very recognizable with its beautifully embossed, medicinal-shaped glass bottle and its not-quite-straight bright orange label. There was a time when it seemed almost every bourbon cocktail I saw at a bar or restaurant was based on Bulleit Bourbon. Personally, it was the first bourbon I started drinking regularly without a soda mixer, but more on that later in the post.
ABV: 45%
How it smells….cinnamon, vanilla, maple syrup, and a little bit of acetone/nail polish remover.
How it tastes….vanilla at the start followed by cherry with a drying and warm ending. The finish is full of cinnamon and oak with a hint of honey sweetness.
Price…I paid $38, but you can get it for $31
Rating….🥃🥃🥃🥃
Final thoughts….I have always found Bulleit to be a perfectly serviceable bourbon and it continues to hold up. It’s not overly complex and it is strong in the cinnamon and oak flavors but it has a bit of sweetness at the start and end to help round it out. On the rocks, it becomes a bit too mellow, so tread carefully if you want a cold sipper.
When I lived in NYC I worked in Connecticut so on Fridays I would go to a big box liquor store (Total Wine) and transport my (weekly) supply of Bulleit back to the city on my train ride home because it was $25 in Connecticut while $37 in NYC. While my Instagram handle was launched earlier this year, this was probably the true beginning of Nice Sipper, the value focused whiskey consumer. Even with the uptick in price, given what the rest of the bourbon market has done, I still think it’s a solid value buy, especially for those that like that strong cinnamon profile with a good bit of oak, albeit, not overly oaked. A 4x 🥃 seems justified.
My first experience with Bulleit dates back to 2007 or so. My friends and I had just moved into a new apartment and another friend, who was a sales rep for a liquor distributor, gave us a “box-o-booze” as an apartment-warming present. The box summarily rested on the top of the refrigerator for the next year, with some odds and ends consumed along the way, however, two bottles of this orange-labeled “Frontier Whiskey” stayed in the box for the next year or so. Then the Financial Crisis happened, the “Great Recession” the “Shitstorm of 2008” (all right, I made up that last title) and I found myself, along with 3 million other Americans, out of a job and on a severely restricted budget. It was time to drink the free liquor available so I revisited the “box-o-booze” and started, what would become, my bourbon journey with none other than Bulleit Bourbon.
Bulleit was always my go-to bourbon over the next 5-6 years. I continued to try other releases but always came back to Bulleit Bourbon (and their Rye release) until my interests in whiskey expanded more widely and I stopped drinking Bulleit. Sipping this tasting was a nice trip down memory lane and I will likely keep a bottle in stock going forward even if it doesn’t become my everyday sipper.
